In early 2008, Garmin announced their GPS device that is also a smartphone, and they unveiled a prototype of it. A year later, they joined hands with ASUS to jointly launch the Garmin-ASUS nüvifone G60. Officially debuted in CommunicAsia 2009, the G60 has finally made its maiden trip to our hands. So lets take a look at how well this highly-anticipated device works out.

Garmin-ASUS nüvifone G60

Incorporated in 1989, Garmin has come a long way to become a leader in GPS navigation systems, in which their systems are presently in used within the automotive and aviation industry as well as the military. Garmin then released their flagship line of GPS receivers and devices, named nüvi.

ASUS, on the other hand, is one of Asia’s Top 10 IT companies and has manufactured a couple of mobile phones equipped with GPS capability under the Windows Mobile platform, and many of those are welly received by the market.

The partnership between Garmin and ASUS forms a unique branding, that incorporates the best of both worlds. The Garmin-ASUS nüvifone G60 is just the tip of the iceberg of what we can expect from this two companies in the near future.

The G60 is unique in another way that it uses Linux as its operating system, instead of the market common Windows Mobile or Symbian. The phone is by no means stingy with memory space, sporting a 4GB worth of on-board flash memory, one can store tons of data without the need of expandable memory.